Jazz Articles about Antonio Ciacca

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Antonio Ciacca Quintet: Lagos Blues

by AAJ Italy Staff
April 14, 2010

Nel realizzare il sesto lavoro da leader Antonio Ciacca ha coronato un sogno: incidere un album con la partecipazione del suo mentore Steve Grossman. E Lagos Blues vede protagonista proprio il musicista americano, capace di dar corpo - con alcuni interventi di rara efficacia - a una scaletta che si risolve in sette brani, scelti tra originali e standard. Due i passi a firma del saxofonista: il classico “Take the D Train" e la delicata ballad “Nicoletta," scritta qualche anno ...

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Antonio Ciacca: Lagos Blues (with Steve Grossman)

by George Kanzler
March 9, 2010

There's a good reason most “real" jazz radio stations tend to favor the modern mainstream jazz of the post-bop era codified by such record labels from the mid-20th Century as Blue Note, Columbia's jazz division, Prestige, Riverside and Impulse. It's creative jazz with a comfortingly substantial physicality, clean lines and rhythmic heft still anchored to a swing feel. The excellent Italian jazz pianist Antonio Ciacca is firmly in that modern mainstream, the music here from a quintet, quartet and trio ...

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Antonio Ciacca: Lagos Blues

by J Hunter
February 6, 2010

Four decades ago, Miles Davis called then-burgeoning saxophonist Steve Grossman “an important voice in this music." One of the people who heard that voice was pianist Antonio Ciacca. Lagos Blues, Ciacca's second disc for Motema, not only shows Grossman's influence as Ciacca's former teacher; it also includes the now-legendary tenor player's direct influence, as he joins Ciacca's regular quartet for the date.

Ciacca says Grossman once compared his former student's writing style to Horace Silver and Benny Golson. That assertion ...

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Antonio Ciacca: Rush Life

by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
January 12, 2010

Antonio Ciacca Quintet's Rush Life is a welcome and valuable addition to the contemporary jazz catalogue, where it will rest easy, knowing its place. There are bits and pieces throughout the nine tracks that serve as hopeful reminders that the album could have been more provocative than it is. What it lacks is not skill, but a cool distance from the cerebral blueprint that's still very visible. The album isn't heralded as groundbreaking, and it isn't. It is a smart ...

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Antonio Ciacca: Bringing People Together Through Swing

by John Barron
June 9, 2009

Antonio Ciacca knows a thing or two about multi-tasking. The New York-based pianist is a tireless statesman of jazz, composing music for his own small groups, arranging for various big bands and working as Director of Programming for Jazz at Lincoln Center. Adding to all of this, Ciacca and his wife are busy raising five children in the hustle-and-bustle of 21st Century Manhattan.Born in Wuppertal, Germany and raised in Italy, the 40-year-old musician received a formal music education ...

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Antonio Ciacca: Rush Life

by John Barron
October 8, 2008

Italian pianist Antonio Ciacca is the kind of musician who displays his influences without reservation.  Steeped in the tradition of bebop and gospel piano, the New York resident is focused on swinging as hard as he can.  Evidence of this can be heard on Rush Life, a hard-blowing quintet recording with tenor saxophonist Stacy Dillard, trumpeter Joe Magnarelli, bassist Kengo Nakamura and drummer Rodney Green.

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Antonio Ciacca: Ugly Beauty

by AAJ Italy Staff
August 16, 2006

Un nuovo acquisto per la scuderia diretta da Flavio Bonandrini: si tratta del pianista Antonio Ciacca, qui in compagnia di una ritmica americana. La sua musica si orienta senza inibizioni ai grandi modelli del passato, da Monk a chi ne ha seguito le orme, come Barry Harris e Jaki Byard, maestri di Ciacca. Lo rivela subito nella scelta del titolo del disco ed in una composizione “Miriam's Doodles", dall'andamento sbilenco, quasi fosse tratta dal songbook di Thelonious. Ciacca ha acquisito, ...